During the 1988-89 school year, our family lived in Fukuoka, Japan, on a sabbatical leave from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. During that time, we served as Mission Service Corps volunteers sponsored by what was then called the Foreign Mission Board…
The grace of wildness: Reflections on a new year
The church was full of birds; at least it was when I was there. In January 2005, for about a week, I went to mass at 5:00 every morning in the Catholic church across the street from the Mekong River…
The gospel as epiphanic moment
In her short story Revelation, Flannery O’Connor writes of the great judgment: Until the sun slipped finally behind the tree line, Mrs. Turpin remained there with her gaze bent to them as if she were absorbing some abysmal life-giving knowledge….
Nondenominationalizing American Christianity II: The responses
You could have fooled me! When BNG published my essay, “The Non-denominationalizing of American Christianity,” Nov. 29, I posted it on my Facebook page, never imagining it would elicit much response. Was I ever surprised! Comments abounded, some with considerable…
The nondenominationalizing of American Christianity
Joel Osteen is an ecclesiastical phenomenon, an American, evangelical, charismatic, postmodern, megachurch, media savvy, health/wealth/motivational speaker, gospel-preacher phenomenon. A 59-year-old who doesn’t look it, Osteen seems made for the media — razor thin, self-effacing, pragmatic and guileless to a fault,…
Antisemitism is rampant in America: Will churches be silent?
Antisemitism, one of the world’s earliest and most enduring conspiracy theories, is again rearing its ugly head. With origins in ancient Greece, antisemitism became a hallmark of Christian-Jewish relations across the centuries. It is with us yet. Writing in the…
‘As it was in the days of Noah’: Questions for Christians, 2022
“As it was in the days of Noah,” Jesus said, “so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the…
The inconsistencies of our ethical declarations: Samford’s dilemma
Editor’s note: Bill Leonard served as professor of church history and chair of the Religion Department at Samford University from January 1992 to June 1996. In his 1995 book, The Stem of Jesse: The Costs of Community at a 1960s…
Was Abe Lincoln a ‘none’? Is there a lesson in that?
During his 1846 Illinois campaign for the U.S. Congress, Abraham Lincoln, candidate for the Whigs, soon to become the Republican Party, was charged by his Democrat opponent, the Methodist circuit rider Peter Cartwright, with being “an open scoffer of Christianity”…